First published 2012
Photographic historian Deborah Willis and slavery historian Barbara Krauthamer examine the lived experience of emancipation through visual evidence. The authors collected 150 photographs spanning from the 1850s to the 1930s, including many previously unpublished images. Their approach treats photographs as active documents that reveal how African Americans engaged with freedom and struggle. The book moves chronologically from plantation scenes through Civil War military service to Juneteenth celebrations and family portraits in the post-war South. Willis and Krauthamer analyze how these images show what their subjects chose to emphasize about themselves, while also documenting broader American opposition to slavery. The photographs challenge standard narratives by showing African American agency and aspiration across generations. This visual history offers readers a concrete understanding of what freedom meant to black Americans during the Civil War era and beyond.
Genres: biography, 20th-century, african-american, 19th-century, art-history, american-history
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: agency, aspiration, visual-evidence
Setting: South, America
Period: 1850s, 1930s, Civil War Era
240 pages · Hardcover · Temple University Press